


The End of This Burning World

by backinthebox



Series: Holy Water Cannot Help You Now [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 04:12:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backinthebox/pseuds/backinthebox
Summary: They lost Laurel, but sometimes Thea felt like she was the only one who mourned her.





	The End of This Burning World

**Author's Note:**

> The next chapter in this story. 
> 
> This is un-beta'd, and I've really stopped watching Arrow since the whole mess with the League, so if there are any inconsistencies or errors, please consider it as artistic license? Please?
> 
> I just really wanted to get Laurel and Thea back together.

The first time Thea Queen met Dinah Laurel Lance, she had been in awe of how someone as pretty and smart as Laurel could be friends with such dorks like her older brother and Tommy Merlyn, Ollie's best friend, and why would Laurel want to be around them. She later learned she and Oliver were dating – boyfriend/girlfriend kind of dating – and while Thea still didn't understand why Laurel would be willing to hang out with her stupid brother and his even more stupid best friend, when Laurel was on the honor roll and could carry a conversation and had actual thoughts and when she and Thea teamed up could beat Oliver and Tommy at Scrabble by double, once even triple, digits. She'd once asked Laurel as much, and the older girl had simply answered that she liked Oliver, as if that answered anything.

Laurel became a fixture at the Queen mansion, and once Thea's concerns that this pretty girl was going to take her brother away from her were addressed and assuaged by Laurel's reassurance that she would never come between her and Ollie, she and Thea developed a sisterly relationship – a much younger Laurel used to joke Thea was her younger sister who didn't ruin her life and steal her stuff – and her mere presence seemed to reassure Thea and Oliver's parents that Oliver was doing better than his miserable grades and tendency to get into trouble implied.

Thea would learn later that Ollie used the goodwill Laurel earned for him with his parents to goof off and get into trouble, well aware that Laurel's dad was with the SCPD, and that his parents would bail him out of trouble, and that Laurel would forgive him anything.

Because she liked him.

And he'd liked her, too, Thea could attest to that. Thea had watched her older brother screw up again and again, but for all his destructive behavior, he would heel and beg for Laurel's forgiveness, try to win her back, get back to her good graces. Each time, Thea wondered why he and Laurel didn't just cut ties and cut their losses; Laurel didn't deserve the many ways Thea's older brother could hurt her, and deep down Thea knew her brother was better than the behavior he exhibited.

Laurel and Oliver stayed together, though. Off and on, through high school and college. Thea's parents were convinced Laurel would become their inevitable daughter in law and tried to groom her as such.

And then The Gambit sank and revelations were made in its aftermath, and nobody was the same.

The lost her father and brother, when the Gambit sank. For a little bit right after, she even lost her mom to the grief.

But Thea also lost a sister, because Laurel had been in college and she had retreated, as if anything related to Oliver Queen was poisoned and would destroy anything and everything. She had forgiven him for so much, but that final act of betrayal had been the breaking point, and Laurel did not even get the dignity of being able to tell him that to his face.

And everyone had known, of Sara Lance being on the Gambit, and everyone had been so preoccupied with the loss of Robert Queen and his son that people forgot the other people on the ship had families, too.

For years following their shared tragedy, Thea had held the belief that Laurel had hated her, merely by virtue of being a member of the Queen family, for its role in the implosion of her life. Laurel's family had fallen apart, in their shared - and yet somehow personal - tragedy, while what was left of the Queen family appeared to move on, seemingly unscathed. What Laurel hadn't known, or had refused to acknowledge, was that Thea and her mom had been forced to carry on, and had dealt with their grief in their own ways. Her mom had focused on the Queen legacy, and Thea...

She and Laurel had that in common, she supposed. Thea had just been young, and Oliver had set a precedent in how the younger Queens were expected to act, and hadn't been the golden girl Laurel was supposed to be; Thea hadn't had that far to fall.

Looking back now, at all those times Tommy would call Laurel when he would catch Thea in trouble, and she can see how he had been trying to remind them both that they still had each other, that even in all they had lost, there were still those who hadn't left. But back then, all Thea saw was the ultra-responsible older girl who hadn't been able to keep Ollie on the straight and narrow enough for him to not have been on that boat.

And then Ollie came back, but came back different; it had been so hard to make him even remotely close to normal, to act like the brother she'd lost, but Thea had noticed how quickly he and Laurel resumed their push-and-pull relationship. As if he hadn't hurt Laurel so much, as if Laurel didn't have the capacity to hurt him so much, with what she had been doing between him and Tommy.

And to top it all off, her Mom couldn't even just sit back and enjoy having her son back. In hindsight Thea can understand the secrets her mom had been keeping, her attempts at protecting her children safe, the same way Ollie had tried – and still tried – to do the same, but Thea had needed her _mom_ , and her brother, and the only person who had managed to keep her from drowning was Laurel.

Laurel, who had probably pulled strings she shouldn't have, protected Ollie, and Thea, and their mom, even after everything.

Laurel, who had lost Tommy to the Undertaking and had been _crucified_ for it. Laurel, who had already lost so much, and had needed Oliver to be the strong and responsible one _for once_ , and he had bailed.

Thea can't say when she chose Laurel over her own brother, but after Sara, and the way he had succumbed to the orchestrations of Malcolm – against Thea's wishes, for the record – despite knowing how much it would hurt Laurel, teaming up with the man who had killed Sara just to gain power… Thea supposed Ollie running away to Ivy Town had been the last straw.

It's not even the running away – being a self-appointed vigilante for justice was a heavy burden, even with a team behind you – but that he had run away with Felicity and had left Thea to deal with her own trauma.

When he'd learned she had moved in with Laurel, he hadn't even been surprised, as if he had just expected his ex-girlfriend to look after his younger sister, as if Laurel would take on that responsibility automatically. He hadn't asked why, or if she needed him to come home, or if he should ask Malcolm or Nyssa about the effects of the Lazarus Pit.

It's not like she hadn't _died_ , or anything.

It's not that she begrudges him his happiness. She's happy for him. Really.

It's his lack of commitment to her, to his friends, to the cause he started. He says he's taking a backseat, that he trusts them to handle Star City and its crises, but he won't hesitate to call them out when he thinks they're not meeting his standards, or even let them learn from their mistakes.

She loves him, but she wishes he'd get himself into therapy and deal with his issues. Laurel had once told her, when Thea had been particularly pissed at the man behind the Green Arrow mask, that Oliver had lost more people than he'd ever tell them, that his inaction or failure had probably gotten a lot of people killed. If he was overprotective of them – and if there were people he had tried to protect and keep out of the line of fire, it was definitely Laurel and Thea – that was likely his PTSD showing itself. And if it came out as Oliver being a broody, secret-keeping drama queen, the best they could do was let him deal with it. Either by calling him out on it or trying to understand, as people who loved him, they should help him.

But he'd get reckless. And his judgment wasn't always best. See: Malcolm. (She and Ollie had that in common.)

He had underestimated Darhk, and Laurel had died.

Thea's lost people before. She'd lost her dad and brother to the South China Sea. She'd lost her mom, who had been killed trying to protect her. She missed Roy something fierce, but she understood Roy had had to fake his own death to protect Oliver and the rest of their team.

Losing Laurel had been… She's never understood it. Laurel had been fine. They had gotten her to the hospital, the doctors had fixed it. They had been told Laurel would be fine. She and Laurel had made plans, to take a break for a bit. They hadn't mentioned it, but Thea knew Laurel needed to get away from Oliver and the revelation that he had fathered a child while he was supposed to have been dating her.

Laurel had been fine.

And then she wasn't.

They lost Laurel, but sometimes Thea felt like she was the only one who mourned her. Yes, Oliver had that monstrosity of a statue commissioned, but Thea went to Laurel's grave regularly, and she's never seen anyone else from the team there, or even signs that anyone else came visit. She'd welcomed the additions to Ollie's team, even as she wondered why they were so quick to welcome them when Oliver and Diggle had put Laurel through the wringer for wanting to follow Sara's footsteps. Then they'd found Dinah – _Dinah_ , like a kick to the gut – and dressed her up in black leather and called her the Black Canary and pretended like dumping her into Laurel's role was honoring Laurel and not them using her as a replacement.

It was easier, to step back from the team, knowing John and Oliver had more people backing them up. To be honest, between the residual effects of the bloodlust from the Lazarus Pit, her near-death experience from that bloodlust, and just the general changes in her life, it also didn't feel right to be out there and not have Laurel. She would look for her sister, expect the Canary Cry, look forward to burgers and milkshakes after patrol or training. And that sentiment, she knew, could get her killed.

The Disney villain with Laurel's face was a constant knife (sword) to the heart. Black Siren was nothing like Laurel, but she'd smirk and smile and look at Thea _just so_ and it was almost like having Laurel back. But Earth-2 Laurel had eroded Thea's goodwill with her constant betrayal and, god, just claiming to be _Laurel_. 

Seeing Sara and fighting alongside her was just another reminder of the sister they had both lost, and if she weren't so worried about the after-effects of the Lazarus Pit, she would have made it her life's mission to find one and bring Laurel back.

And then Laurel was back. From a Lazarus Pit.

Thea had been so happy to see her, even with the startling realization that she hadn't been to Laurel's grave long enough for her body to have been stolen. She had been overjoyed to have Laurel alive and seemingly well, especially with both Laurel and Nyssa reassuring her Laurel did not possess the same bloodlust Thea and Sara both got after their own Lazarus Pit experiences. She had started looking forward to having Laurel back, the vacations they could have, maybe have Laurel taking over as Oliver's Chief of Staff.

Except Earth-2 Laurel had already taken over being this earth's Laurel Lance. And both Laurel and Nyssa were reluctant to address the topic of how to integrate Laurel back into Star City.

She hadn't considered that Laurel would choose to leave.

With a phone call from a payphone – like where the hell did Laurel even find one, _what the hell_ – Laurel explained why she couldn't go back, but she'll call Thea when she can.

Laurel had said she didn't feel the effects of the Lazarus Pit, but that she didn't really feel like any of it was real, and Thea can understand that, she too remembers being nothing but angry in the weeks following her resurrection, that going on patrol and joining Laurel and Diggle on missions, or just training with them, were the only times she'd feel like herself.

So she let it go. Laurel felt better doing who knows what away from everyone that loved her, that was fine. At least Laurel said goodbye to her. The rest of Team Arrow didn't even get that much.

And Roy was back. She hadn't even realized just how much she had missed him until he was there, and he was such a reminder of the person she had been before the Lazarus Pit that when he offered her a life away from Star City, she hadn't hesitated. There were no hesitations to be made. It's a quiet life away from all this, from the chaos and bloodshed of Star City, and it would be a life with Roy. What more could she ask for?

But Malcolm – her _father_ – had machinations in place, for his legacy to live on beyond just her and whatever had become of Merlyn Global. In his short time as Ra's al Ghul, he had formed a rogue team from the League of Assassins – the Thanatos Guild – and they were intent on not only recognizing her as Heir to the Demon, but carrying out a mission Malcolm had given them.

A title and a mission Thea wanted nothing to do with, but if it meant helping Nyssa, destroying Lazarus Pits and ending the scattered pieces of the League of Assassins after Nyssa had disbanded them, well…

At least Roy had opted to come along. He wanted out, but for her, he was willing to join their mission and maybe, when it was all over, move on.

She starts reconsidering just what it would mean for things to be "over," however, when Roy gets gravely injured and the safe house Nyssa brings them to is occupied by members of her own splinter group of League Assassins, all of whom are training one Laurel Lance.

She should have known, though. And she's a little pissed at both Nyssa and Laurel for keeping secrets from her, even though she understands their reasons and secrecy was a big deal, considering how many enemies Nyssa, Sara, and the Black Canary had.

But Laurel was supposed to have gotten away. A new lease on life, and all that jazz. Thea didn't get it.

Except.

"She's not good enough to handle those many opponents," Roy said, concern evident in his voice, as he and Thea watched Laurel training on the gardens below, ten people surrounding her. He knew and admired Laurel, and he supposed training with former members of the League had to be intense, but nobody could face that many actual assassins.

Thea cut a glance at where Nyssa stood on another part of the balcony they stood on, also watching. Unlike herself and Roy, Nyssa looked unperturbed.

Or that was just Nyssa's poker face, Thea couldn't be sure.

She jumped when the melee sparring session started, Laurel holding her own against the first few, even handling three to four opponents at a time, but she was clearly holding back, her actions controlled and on the defensive, which wasn't a good idea when you're surrounded. Thea gasped when a particularly hard hit got Laurel stumbling, which was the smallest of an opening any opponent needed, and soon Laurel was down, her opponents descending upon her.

"Make them stop," Thea told Nyssa, her voice wrought with concern. And maybe panic.

Nyssa ignored her, and just as Thea and Roy were about to make their way to the garden, a loud, piercing scream resonated behind them, making Nyssa turn away, as if that would help blunt the impact of the sound, and Roy and Thea to duck, avoiding the sound waves.

"What the hell," Roy mumbled, once it was over, and scrambling to his feet.

But Thea knew what that was. She'd seen it in action, she's seen and heard Dinah and Black Siren use a similar sound as a weapon.

Thea scrambled to the balcony, looking down to where Laurel was on the ground, panting heavily from the exertion and effort, and her opponents several feet away from her, as if thrown away from her by a physical blast.

Thea pitied the person who had been closest to Laurel when she'd generated her cry.

"I didn't even see the device on her," Roy muttered.

"I don't think that was a device," Thea noted. She turned her gaze to Nyssa. "How long?"

"Since she was brought back." Nyssa supplied, not even tearing her gaze away from Laurel.

"You didn't think—" Thea shook her head. "We deserved to know."

"She did not want you to know."

"We could have helped her!"

Nyssa turned to meet Thea's glare with a placid look of her own. "Yes. Your brother is most _helpful_ , with matters concerning Laurel."

That's a slight against Oliver, and Thea can't even refute the assertion. Still, though: "Dinah—"

"Harbors hatred for the impostor wearing Laurel's face." Nyssa pointed out. Thea doesn't even question how Nyssa knows that. "Your friends at Central City could very well keep her in their pipeline as a protective measure, with Laurel's own permission, if not study her as a Science experiment."

All very valid points.

"You're not the only one who can help her," Thea argued.

"No," Nyssa, to Thea's surprise, actually agreed. "But she asked for mine."

Thea sighed, closing her eyes as she tried to regain some semblance of calm and focus, before opening her eyes and asking Nyssa, "Can she control it?"

"She is getting there." Nyssa hedged. Her hesitation was evident, though, and eventually she sighed. "She holds it back. We've learned she can produce the sound anytime, but in a fight she only uses it as a last resort. She hesitates. It is an offensive weapon, but she barely even uses it."

Thea returned her gaze to the garden, where Laurel had resumed sparring, only this time with a single person, and now no longer in fear of Laurel being overwhelmed by the number of her opponents, got the observe the fluidity of her movements. Laurel's style had always been more of a brawler, and Thea can see the difference. "The Lazarus Pit changed her, didn't it?"

Nyssa's sigh was soft, and she admitted, "It changes everyone."

* * *

Roy was still healing, which was officially why they were still holed up in the safe house, but Thea had a feeling they remained in their current location for more personal matters. Especially when Nyssa abruptly departs without telling any of them why, only that they should follow the instructions of any of her lieutenants, should the need arise.

She's been avoiding Laurel, and everyone knew it, but one afternoon Roy decided to join Laurel's sparring session, girlfriend's disappointed glare be damned, and Thea was left with the option of sulking alone in their room or joining in on the only activity happening in the villa.

Thea knows she's faster than Laurel, and probably had more intense training, but Laurel has been working pretty much around the clock with Nyssa and her team of assassins, and Thea has to say, Laurel has gotten infinitely better at not having her ass handed to her, even when faced with better trained fighters, or several of them. Between Laurel and Roy, Thea has to admit they actually fare better than she had expected, and Laurel doesn't even use the Canary Cry once.

She just wonders what Laurel is training for, if she doesn't intend to return to Star City or join Sara in traveling through time. Thea knows Barry's team in Central City would love to have her, but even that doesn't seem to be an option.

Thea doesn't know how to ask, until one day she gets news from Oliver, and without Nyssa around, she's the one tasked to check in on Laurel after they find out Quentin Lance had died.

And it hits her, they never told Laurel's dad about being brought back. She'd understood it, at the time, right after Laurel came back, that she and Nyssa didn't know if Laurel was a ticking time bomb, if her return was an insurance policy, if the resurrection would even stick. Talia, Nyssa's sister who had brought her back, had sworn there were no strings attached, but everyone knew better.

So when Laurel said she didn't want her dad to know until they knew for certain, they had bought her reasoning and did as she requested.

And now he'd died, not knowing his eldest daughter was alive, with Black Siren being the Laurel who stood with Sara at his hospital bed.

He'd died, taking a bullet meant for Black Siren.

The world was messed up.

Thea found her, absolutely _destroying_ a punching bag, and voiced out, "Dig said if we want, Lyla or Sara can come and pick us up for the funeral, or…"

"No."

Thea frowned. "Laurel, he's your dad, you should—"

"Thea. No."

Thea's temper flared. "What's wrong with you? You don't tell him you're back, you disappeared off the face of the Earth, you sign up to train with the leftovers of the League of Assassins, you trust Nyssa more than Ollie or me or even Sara, and now your dad dies and you just—"

Laurel abruptly stopped punching the bag to whirl around and face Thea, her expression giving away the hurt and anger she felt about being called out. "Yes, Thea. He died. And from what I understand none of you can say for sure whose side Black Siren is on. Oliver's still under siege from the latest big bad that's taken over Star City under his watch, and half of his team are on the outs. Tell me, which part, under those circumstances, is supposed to make me think my showing up at Starling, even to see my dad, and say goodbye to him, is a good thing?"

Thea stopped short. "But—"

"This is not a debate, Thea."

"He's your dad."

"I know that."

"What happened to you?" Thea asked, desperation coloring her voice, because she really wanted to know why Laurel could be so familiar, and yet so different, at the same time. She gets that Laurel had died, and had been brought back, but she couldn't figure out just what had changed.

"Do you know why Nyssa agreed not to tell him that I was brought back?" Laurel continued.

Thea shook her head.

"Talia didn't know, when she brought me back, that I would wake up screaming, the way I can now." Laurel told her. "Once she learned that, she was relentless. She didn't stop, you know, once she realized I wasn't a soulless monster overwhelmed by bloodlust. You're not supposed to bring someone back with a Lazarus Pit if it's been so long since they've died, but she did it, and it worked, and she wanted to try and trigger… something, I don't know. She didn't know it was Darhk. But she must have figured it out, somehow, or someone told her."

"The bloodlust wants the soul of the person who killed you," Thea recalled. She furrowed her brow. "That's what triggered the Canary Cry? Because Darhk is dead?"

"No," Laurel shook her head. "It's… from what happened."

"Which part?"

"Everything."

It's being used, again and again, her generosity and kindness abused by those who claim to love her. It's doing everything she can to be self-sufficient and independent, but still being treated like somebody's burden to bear. It's being targeted as a victim, and being accused that she had been asking for it. It's having her trust abused and then refusing to trust blindly, only to have people get mad at her when secrets implode.

It's the trauma of being killed by Damien Darhk, not because she had been intent to bring him to justice, because she had been working alongside the Arrow, or because she was the Black Canary: Darhk had chosen to kill her to send a message to her father.

It's dying with blood in her lungs and waking up drowning in the depths of a Lazarus Pit and emerging from the waters, taking a lungful of air and screaming from the depths of her soul.

Nyssa had been right, about the nightmares. They didn't start happening right away, but once they were on their own, weeks without communication from anyone Laurel knew, the dreams came quickly, and only grew in intensity. Like the vertigo hallucinations, Laurel's dreams were dark and troubling, and there were nights when the only way she would wake up was screaming, sometimes even at Canary Cry levels.

That had been when Nyssa brought her to the safe house, away from civilization, and focused on using her new ability as a weapon, as something she can harness and control, believing it would help with the dreams.

It wasn't just the dreams, though, that she had learned to control in her training. It's the fact that she had come to consider her life as a series of unfortunate events, that "out of control" had felt like her norm. It's in taking ownership of her choices, that they hadn't just been reactions to what happened to her.

It's forgiving Oliver, and Sara, and her mom and dad. It's accepting the fact that she'd made mistakes, too, and forgiving herself for them.

She couldn't go back to Star City, not even for her dad. Peace was such a delicate thing to find, and she worried any reunion between them would only result in turmoil.

It was something she felt about everyone in Star City. Telling them of her resurrection had been a warning, of just how far Talia would be willing to go to gain the upper hand. But she had been honest, about her lack of desire to go back. She had lived and breathed and died in Star City, and it was home in ways she doubted any other place on Earth would feel like, but she could not go back.

It was painful to hear, but Thea came to the realization that with this mission with Nyssa, and with the promise of what she and Roy could do once it was over… well, neither could she.

She may not have a doppelgänger going around claiming her life, and she still had Oliver and even William; however she looked back at Star City and she could not imagine going back there.

She, too, was done.

She had Roy, and she had Laurel, and it was everything she had needed ever since Roy left and Laurel had died, and it's with them that she's relearning who she is.

Nyssa is an odd addition to their little group, but she also somehow fits in, mostly because she doesn't miss a beat in joining Thea and Laurel in making fun of Roy… and she was the only one who knew what they were supposed to be doing, mission-wise.

They form their own team, which Roy calls under his breath Team Living Dead, which makes Nyssa cringe and both Laurel and Thea roll their eyes, but nobody offers an alternative, so it sticks.

They are a team, and they have each other's backs.

Even if that means aiming arrows across the room at Sara Lance, who had her own bow and arrow aimed at Laurel and the people with her, deadly calm as she demanded, "Where's Nyssa?"


End file.
